Editorial | Hoosier health care

Health care won this week in Indiana with the final decision by a federal judge to shut down that state's mean-spirited effort to strip Medicaid funds from Planned Parenthood.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt on Tuesday made permanent her previous preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of a 2011 law driven by anti-abortion zealotry. The law would have barred Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood for all health services for men and women - such as cancer screenings, medical exams or birth control.

Medicaid does not cover abortions. But that didn't stop Indiana lawmakers from trying to punish Planned Parenthood because a tiny fraction of its work (3 percent) is providing abortions for women who can find the means to pay.

Indiana lawmakers tried to try to cut off Medicaid payments for care of about 9,000 Planned Parenthood patients in Indiana - even though none of the Medicaid money went for abortion services.

State officials took the battle all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and lost.

Monday, the state capitulated and agreed it cannot bar Medicaid coverage for Planned Parenthood patients.

It's a "huge step foward" as Planned Parenthood seeks to expand its services for low-income patients through a recent merger with Kentucky's chapter, said said Betty Cockrum, president of Planned Parenthood in Kentucky and Indiana.

Abortion opponents may have sincere convictions. But that doesn't excuse wholesale destruction of other health care services for the poorest and most vulnerable citizens.

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Editorial | Hoosier health care

Health care won this week in Indiana with the final decision by a federal judge to shut down that state's mean-spirited effort to strip Medicaid funds from Planned Parenthood.